chers and their dogs, hunted, laid siege to towns,
made war, and only had recourse to excommunication when all other means
of prevailing over their foes had failed. Others among them became
saints: both in heaven and on earth they held the first rank. Like the
sovereign, they knew, even then, the worth of public opinion; they
bought the goodwill of wandering poets, as that of the press was bought
in the day of Defoe. The itinerant minstrels were the newspapers of the
period; they retailed the news and distributed praise or blame; they
acquired over the common people the same influence that "printed matter"
has had in more recent times. Hugh de Nunant, bishop of Coventry,
accuses William de Longchamp, bishop of Ely, and Chancellor of England,
in a letter still extant, of having inspired the verses--one might
almost say the articles--that minstrels come from France, and paid by
him, told in public places, "in plateis," not without effect, "for
already, according to public opinion, no one in the universe was
comparable to him."[229]

Nothing gives so vivid an impression of the time that has elapsed, and
the transformation in manners that has occurred, as the sight of that
religious and warlike tournament of which England was the field under
Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and of which the heroes were all prelates, to
wit: these same William de Longchamp, bishop of Ely, and Hugh de Nunant,
bishop of Coventry; then Hugh de Puiset, bishop of Durham, Geoffrey
Plantagenet, archbishop of York, &c.

Hugh de Puiset, a scion of the de Puisets, viscounts of Chartres,
grandson of the Conqueror, cousin to King Richard, bishop palatine of
Durham, wears the coat of mail, fortifies his castles, storms those of
his enemies, builds ships, adds a beautiful "Lady chapel" to his
cathedral, and spends the rest of his time in hunting.

William de Longchamp, his great rival, grandson of a Norman peasant,
bishop of Ely, Chancellor of England, seizes on Lincoln by force, lives
like a prince, has an escort of a thousand horsemen, adds to the
fortifications of the Tower of London and stands a siege in it. He is
obliged to give himself up to Hugh de Nunant, another bishop; he escapes
disguised as a woman; he is recognised, imprisoned in a cellar, and
exiled; he then excommunicates his enemies. Fortune smiles on him once
more and he is reinstated in his functions.

Geoffrey Plantagenet, a natural son of Henry II., the only child who
remained always faithfu